Hack Education

Why all the excitement over tablets for education? This is something I've been stewing about for a long, long time. Note: I didn't ask, "why personal computers?" But having written up a Top Trends in Ed-Tech post yesterday, I was struck once again by the abundance of hype over tablets....

In the next week or so, I plan to kick off my annual review of the year’s major ed-tech developments. I’ve identified the 10 trends that I think have been 2012’s most interesting and important. I’ll string out the posts that cover these over the next 6 weeks — and...

Election Night Racism on Twitter Like many people, I spent Election Night tuned in to Twitter, watching the results via my social media stream rather than via television. It felt more participatory than passive. It felt more immediate, less contrived. As a reflection of society, the responses on Twitter were...

Every week, Steve Hargadon and I sit down (virtually) to talk about the latest ed-tech news. I always find our conversation to be one of the most thought-provoking exchanges I have all week. In this week's recording, we discuss the changes to Flat World Knowledge as well as results from...

Election Night Results Well thank goodness it’s over. The U.S. 2012 Elections, that is. In addition to re-electing President Barack Obama for a second term, voters also tackled the following education-related issues: Indiana’s incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett (R) was defeated by Glenda Ritz (D), a former “teacher...

Sorry I haven’t written much here this week. I can offer multiple excuses: 1) Travel 2) The Election 3) My Kid Is Visiting Of course, November brings on certain writing pressures (for me, it’s #DigiWriMo: 50,000 words of digital writing this month). So I’ve actually been updating my personal blog while...

Cross-posted at Inside Higher Ed The End of Free at Flat World Knowledge News broke on Friday (via The Chronicle of Higher Education, reporting on a blurb from the National Association of College Stores’s newsletter) that the open textbook publisher Flat World Knowledge would be ending access to free versions...

This is still a germ of an idea, but it’s a germ of an idea that’s already spawned a collaborative Google Doc and a blog post, and with that we are officially off and running… “So Let’s Start An #eduhistory Book Club, Then?” writes Bud Hunt, observing that “We don’t...

Every week, Steve Hargadon and I sit down (virtually) to talk about the latest ed-tech news. I always find our conversation to be one of the most thought-provoking exchanges I have all week. Unfortunately it seems like lately our conversations aren't just thought-provoking but they're plagued with technical difficulties. Grr....

Hurricane, Law, and Politics Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc across the Northeast this week. Public school was canceled (and remains so in some places), with many schools turning into shelters. (Are charters required to do this the same way public schools are?) On the tech front, many people credited open data and...